My name is JD and i'm a new Gentoo user...i used to (and still do) run Debian and Ubuntu and i decided to give Gentoo a try because i heard you learn a lot in installing/using it, it's INSANELY configurable and i hear it's a bit faster than binary distros. I got the install done quite easily and quickly, i have run into a few problems with getting GDM/Gnome up and running, but i think i have them pretty much solved now. Also, the misconceptions i've heard about this community are very wrong...excellent...i hope to learn a lot and be as much of an asset to this community as i can.

Hi JD, I'm glad you made it past the initial stages. I just got on board, as well; this is the distro I've been looking for. The speed is terrific, especially if you set your USE and compiler flags correctly. The Swiftfox site has a list of compiler flags that should work pretty well for your architecture. I recommend recompiling anything that Gentoo installed for you as a binary. (As a side, I don't recommend Swiftfox; recompile Firefox [package: mozilla-firefox] yourself if you're going to use it).

I use Ubuntu on an AMD 64-bit Athlon 3400+ (filesys: ext3) and Gentoo on an AMD 32-bit Sempron (filesys: reiserfs). Last night, I emerged Open Office; in Fluxbox, Open Office Writer loads in 9 seconds on Ubuntu and 2.5 seconds on Gentoo (used a stopwatch).

Gentoo receives a lot of bad press from other people in the Linux community. One of my friends, a die-hard Debian fan, told me that it was a 15-year-old's tinker toy before I made the switch. I've often heard that the users are cold; my experience so far is that they're very friendly, and if you ever need Linux help in general, go to one of them (or a Slackware user). I think the people who insult it often do so for the same reason Windows users bash Linux in general: Gentoo is unlike any other distro out there. So far, I love it._________________"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." -Einstein

Gentoo receives a lot of bad press from other people in the Linux community. One of my friends, a die-hard Debian fan, told me that it was a 15-year-old's tinker toy before I made the switch. I've often heard that the users are cold; my experience so far is that they're very friendly, and if you ever need Linux help in general, go to one of them (or a Slackware user). I think the people who insult it often do so for the same reason Windows users bash Linux in general: Gentoo is unlike any other distro out there.

They fear things they know nothing about
The Gentoo Community is by far the most friendly and helpful of all community's out there, I've never came across any forums that can solve your problems as fast as here_________________AMD Athlon64 X2 4200+ AM2
MSI K9N SLI Platinum, Enermax Liberty 500W
1GB RAM Crucial DDR2 667MHz, MSI nVidia 7600GS 256MB
400GB + 250GB Samsung SATAII HDD
Gentoo - BeyondSources 2.6.19-20

thanks for all the kind welcomes...i'm so far quite happy with Gentoo, but i haven't been using it for everything i do on a daily basis because i STILL don't have a Desktop Environment installed yet...i was installing Gnome, but about 4 packages from finishig, the compiling started getting VERY slow and there was some drama on one of the IRC servers i run so i had to boot back into Debian...hopefully tomorrow (today) i'll go back in, finish the 4 packages and hopefully have Gnome, if stuff doesn't work, you'll be seeing me on IRC (my handle is jdhoreotg)

Make sure you set your /etc/make.conf file appropriately Gnome is a huge package, Put MAKEOPTS="-j2" (for one processor, -j3 for two processors/cores, etc.) in that file if it isn't there already; it'll speed up your compilation.

I save the larger packages for compiling while I'm asleep. A few days ago, when I built Open Office, I let Portage get started right before I started counting sheep. It was done by the time I woke up; I gave it a quick test; it was definitely worth compiling by hand (as opposed to grabbing the precompiled package), as the speed increase was immense._________________"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." -Einstein

Make sure you set your /etc/make.conf file appropriately Gnome is a huge package, Put MAKEOPTS="-j2" (for one processor, -j3 for two processors/cores, etc.) in that file if it isn't there already; it'll speed up your compilation.

I save the larger packages for compiling while I'm asleep. A few days ago, when I built Open Office, I let Portage get started right before I started counting sheep. It was done by the time I woke up; I gave it a quick test; it was definitely worth compiling by hand (as opposed to grabbing the precompiled package), as the speed increase was immense.

yep...already did that, thanks...i got Gnome working (mostly) and i have to say, i'm surprised...booting and everything, it's A LOT faster than Debian or the last time i tried Gentoo (and gave up at the point of extracting portage-latest)...Even Firefox, when i click it, it opens instantly

Gentoo is a distro that one should install, after realizing the deficiencies in binary-only distros. That takes time. For me, it took about 3 years part-time.

When installing & using Gentoo, be prepared to spend a lot of effort learning about Linux. This effort is great once done, but not suitable for those with limited time/effort.

Some people like to flame, some people don't, some people think that other people are flaming when they are not. Too many people jump to conclusions about flaming, thinking that it's flaming when it's just just posting. You're getting advice for free, remember - so be respectful in your questions, which you are asking for answers for, for free. You are getting advice for free. That's a good thing, yes? No-one has volunteered to pay for my lessons in "customer" satisfaction, and to be honest I'd probably just spend it all on beer anyway.

i was led to believe that the community is kind of assholes and whenever a semi-newb (like myself) asks a question, he/she gets flamed and basically told "RTFM n00b"

I don't know where that comes from at all; the user-community is what keeps me with Gentoo, TBH. I recommend trying out IRC if you haven't, although it does suck up your life! #gentoo and #gentoo-chat on irc.freenode.org are great. Another thing I recommend (to people on IRC as well) is check the gentoo user mailiing-list as well as the forums when you're having problems. The user m-l is a great resource with thousands of people giving good advice, and quickly.

IRC never caught on for me; I'm a big advocate of posting my questions, comments (both intelligent and moronic), etc. on forums. They take longer to navigate, my posts might make me look dumb in some cases, and it often takes a bit longer to get a response, but the information can be searched for and re-read and the knowledge sharing is much more effective IMHO._________________"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." -Einstein